[micro_softy]

You want enhanced privacy, control and transparency?

Use a less complex program to retrieve web pages, with less features. (Or to post data.)

Then use another program that cannot commmunicate with the network to view them. Remove all networking code and recompile.

The complexity and feature set of the second program is up to the user.

I find that many of the features of Chrome, Firefox, etc. are ones I do not need on a daily basis.

As radical as this might sound in contrast to the conventional wisdom, if I had the influence of an organization such the ones producing Chrome or Firefox I'm quite sure that I could convince other users that they really don't need these features either. Such features usually come with an undisclosed or downplayed cost.